Temple found where priests wore skins of dead
MEXICOCITY: Mexican experts have found the first temple of the Flayed Lord, a pre-hispanic fertility god depicted as a skinned human corpse.
Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History said the find was made during recent excavations of Popoloca Indian ruins in the central state of Puebla.
Experts found two skulllike stone carvings and a stone trunk depicting the god, Xipe Totec.
It had an extra hand dangling off one arm, suggesting the god was wearing the skin of a sacrificial victim.
Priests worshipped Xipe Totec by skinning human victims and donning their skins. The ritual was seen as a way to ensure fertility and regeneration. The Popolocas built the temple at a complex known as Ndachjian-tehuacan between 1000 CE and 1260 CE and were later conquered by the Aztecs.
Ancient accounts of the rituals suggested victims were killed in gladiator-style combat or by arrows on one platform, then skinned on another platform. The layout of the temple seems to match that description.
Depictions of the god had been found before in other cultures, including the Aztecs, but not a whole temple. University of Florida archaeologist Susan Gillespie wrote that “finding the torso fragment of a human wearing the skin of a sacrificial victim is compelling evidence of the association of this practice and the related deity”.